One would think that the childhood home of the man who came to be the father of this country would be a prominent historical landmark heralding one more piece in the larger puzzle of American history. The reality is that its landmark status is quite recent, and it was not until February 16, 2000 that the Secretary of the Interior designated this site a historical landmark.

Ferry Farm, like Washington’s Birthplace and several other nationally significant historic sites, attracted the interest of historic preservationists in the 1920s. Spurred by the colonial revival, the emergence of the automobile as a stimulus to historical tourism, and the impending 1932 bicentennial of Washington’s birth, a national group—the Citizens of George Washington’s Boyhood Home [modern-day George Washington Foundation]—was founded in 1926 to acquire the site for the benefit of the public.

According to theGeorge Washington Foundationit was on “July 2, 2008, that archaeologists working at the site of George Washington’s childhood home […] located and excavated the remains of the long-sought house where Washington was raised.”

The site situated in Ferry Farm, Stafford County, Virginia, rather than featuring a neoclassical piece of Americana—like the present Georgian-style structure that is prominently the face of the place—is simply an archaeological site. As this region was also the scene of many civil war battles, excavators must always be aware of the likely contamination of the site by artifacts of later eras.

Some of the most interesting items in our collections, at least to my way of thinking, are the publications of various war-crimes tribunals. These range from the Nuremberg Trials to the more recent tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In this post, I want to touch on a number of these resources and invite you […]

This week’s interview is with Svitlana Vodyanyk, a summer intern at the Global Legal Research Center, Law Library of Congress. The Law Library’s internship program is in full swing and we are introducing all our summer interns to In Custodia Legis readers every week. Describe your background I was born in the Soviet Union but grew […]

Don’t let the title of this post mislead you. Of course it was not Robin Hood and his Merry Men who brought King John to his knees in June of 1215. That was accomplished by a band of John’s own barons. But here and there over the last couple of centuries, stories of the legendary […]

At a recent public event, I presented a display of books from the Law Library’s Rare Book Collection including this unusually printed 1591 edition of Littleton’s Tenures. One of the attractive features of the book is that it contains two very nice engravings that were bound into it ahead of the title page. The engravings, […]

Dwight D. Opperman died last Thursday at his home in Bel Air, Calif., after a short illness. He was 89. Mr. Opperman and his wife, Julie Chrystyn Opperman, have been good friends and generous benefactors of the Law Library of Congress. He is well known for his work as the former head of West Publishing Company. Mr. Opperman is […]

This week’s interview is with Antoinette Ofosu-Kwakye, a summer intern at the Global Legal Research Center, Law Library of Congress. The Law Library’s internship program is in full swing and we plan to introduce all our summer interns to In Custodia Legis readers every week. Stay tuned. Describe your background I was born and raised […]

The following is a guest post by Peter Roudik, Director of Global Legal Research at the Law Library of Congress. Peter has previously contributed various posts to In Custodia Legis, including on the Pittsburgh Agreement, the ASIL Annual Meeting, Russia’s immigration policies and the U.S. Trade Act, and the Treaty on the Creation of the […]

This is a guest post by Dante Figueroa, Antonio Casu (Direttore della Biblioteca, Camera dei Deputati), and Vito Cozzoli (Consigliere Capo dell’Avvocatura, Camera dei Deputati). This is the second post in a series describing the main aspects of the Italian legislature. The first post discussed the development of the modern Italian government. The Italian Republican Constitution – […]

Have you ever wondered how the In Custodia Legis sausage is made? Well, you are in luck. Every month the blog team meets to develop what we call the “editorial calendar.” The majority of the meeting is usually spent on handing out assignments to bloggers to generate content, including by looking at upcoming events and […]

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